The Salinas Valley's summer season is in its final stretch, and conditions aren't making it easy. Long, warm days combined with humid nights have created significant stress across multiple vegetable crops, leading to quality problems in leafy greens.
Salinas is the engine of the U.S. leafy green supply for much of the year, so end-of-season quality issues there have real downstream consequences. This compounds an already difficult stretch for the category — the Cyclospora outbreak earlier this season already dented consumer confidence and wiped out demand. Buyers who are still rebuilding volume in salad and greens now have to contend with quality inconsistencies on top of elevated prices.
With the Salinas season winding down, the market will increasingly shift to other growing regions. Worth monitoring transition timing closely and flagging quality expectations to retail partners as supply sources change.